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The rabbit holes that lockdown research takes you. Or mouse holes? Read further
So @OtherCeltic sent me this photo earlier today on WhatsApp as a funny sort of aside
It was from a @guardian report of a Saharan sandstorm which hit the Canary Islands in the Before Times (24 February 2020) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/24/british-tourists-stranded-in-canary-islands-after-saharan-sandstorm-blows-in
How hilarious the things that occupied us back in those days
Some of it looks damn near like Biblical prophecy in hindsight https://twitter.com/Cahora/status/1231640520386129923
But none of this explained why there was a Viking ship parked in Tenerife
So naturally I turned to twitter, and the answers were there all along @VikingTenerife
It's a Viking-themed cruise experience in Tenerife, and I really hope they don't have to wear these costumes every day
(It seems they can opt for a breezier variant)
Also jarring to see aspects of my Caribbean heritage and my current research smash together - I feel like @Archaeofiend has probably written about this somewhere
And then, delightfully, another thing came up when googling Vikings in Tenerife https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.3126
So a mouse skeleton sampled from a sand dune in Madeira was c14-dated to 10/11th century AD, and has a northern European genetic profile
This is way out of my field, and I have many questions (eg how many archaeologists were sent out to test the context and stratigraphy...) but I guess it's possible that Vikings visited Macaronesia during the period of North Atlantic colonisation? @caitlinrgreen @PCJolicoeur
Guess I should get back to work now then http://fav.me/ddc9vvn
